Antoni Tąpies was born in Barcelona in 1923, dies at 88 years of age, 6 February 2012, in Barcelona.

Catalan painter and graphic artist who began his career as a surrealist with no formal training.
Co-founder of the group centred around the magazine 'Dau al Set' in Barcelona. In 1950-51 he went on a French government scolarship to Paris and in 1953 visited New York for his first American exhibition. He has won numerous prizes including the prize for painting at the 1958 Venice Biennale. Tapies was influenced by Dubuffet and Miro and he became very aware of the heritage he shared with Miro (there are considerable similarities between the two artists' prints of the late 1960's).

Characteristic work by Tapies includes paintings with thickly impastoed, scratched or scraped paint in a dramatic style with austere imagery and earthy colour. All this may relate strongly to the character of the spanish countryside. In the mid-1950's Tapies became concerned with the physical evidence of man's journey through his environment. His work increasingly began to emulate the decay and ware through time or defacement of doors and walls. He used areas of sand and ...